


ups and downs

by Lipotropins, orphan_account



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: ? - Freeform, Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, No Incest, Pining, Post-Time Skip, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26256310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lipotropins/pseuds/Lipotropins, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Atsumu falls in love with Sakusa Kiyoomi in the most painful way possible.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 15
Kudos: 126





	ups and downs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astroeulogy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astroeulogy/gifts).



> thanks to @astroeulogy who kickstarted my love for sakuatsu
> 
> there is no incest in here :D

Atsumu doesn’t exactly remember when it began, but if he had to take a guess, he would say that it started with volleyball. It always starts with volleyball.

They’re at practice. Atsumu makes a set. It’s flawless: the ball’s arc through the air , the angle of its rotation. Sakusa jumps, his body haloed by the fluorescent lights on the ceiling, and Atsumu thinks:  _ oh _ .

He spikes the ball. In the time before it hits the floor, Atsumu falls in love with Sakusa Kiyoomi.

The ball hits the very inner edge of the end line. Sakusa turns to him and makes that almost-smile, the kind where his mouth doesn’t move, but the edges of his eyes wrinkle. He remains blissfully unaware that Atsumu’s world has just been utterly demolished.

“Nice kill,” Atsumu says dumbly. Then he coughs.

The smile melts off of Sakusa’s face. “Are you sick?”

“No, no, I’m-“ he says, and coughs again. Sakusa edges away from him.

“If you’re sick, you should go home,” he says.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Atsumu says. “S’just a little cough. No need to worry.”

Sakusa frowns. He lets it go.

—

That night, they head out for dinner together, slipping out from the locker room and onto the streets. Atsumu makes meaningless chatter, Sakusa hums and nods along in response. Occasionally, he’ll crack a joke in such a deadpan tone that Atsumu can’t help but crack up. 

Atsumu always keeps a foot of distance in between them. Even after all this time, Sakusa holds an aversion to touch.

It’s a comfortable routine. Yet today, Atsumu finds his gaze continually straying towards Sakusa, staring at his dark black eyes, the shape of his torso, or the nape of his neck.

“Is there something wrong?” Sakusa asks. “You’re staring.”

“Huh? No,” Atsumu says, and jerks his head away. His throat feels tight.

“Perhaps today’s practice finally burned though your last brain cell,” Sakusa says.

“Shaddup,” Atsumu grumbles. “I’ve got plenty more, thank ya very much.”

Sakusa snorts. When he looks back over, Sakusa has a little smirk on his face, one that brings a rise of warmth towards Atsumu’s cheeks. He looks away.

They walk into a dimly lit diner and settle down at their usual spot. Atsumu produces a bag of antibacterial wipes, Sakusa brings out a bottle of disinfectant, and they get to work sanitizing the table and stools. The waitress passing by doesn’t spare them a second glance.

Atsumu orders the usual. Sakusa pours sanitizer on his hands and thoroughly rubs them over. He repeats this twice, while Atsumu scrolls through his phone and talks about whatever passes through his mind.

The food arrives. They eat, and for a while, the only sounds are the clicking of chopsticks. It’s quiet, comfortable. A few months ago, Sakusa probably would rather have licked the locker room floor than go for dinner with him. But Atsumu is stubborn, if nothing else. He’d wheedled endlessly, with gratuitous usage of Sakusa’s nickname. Convincing Sakusa to go out to dinner with him a few nights a week is something Atsumu deems a personal victory.

Atsumu thinks it went pretty well, all things considered.

But now, he almost regrets it, as he watches the dim light illuminate Sakusa’s cheekbones. His face looks very soft. 

Sakusa looks up. “You have rice on your face, Miya,” he says, and reaches across the table to brush it off with his thumb. The skin that he touches burns.

Atsumu stares as Sakusa pulls out a wipe, rubs his hands, then returns to his meal.

_ What are you doin’ to me, Omi-Omi, _ he thinks.

He coughs, once, then again. Sakusa looks up, alarmed. 

“Seriously, if you’re sick, go home,” he says.

Atsumu waves it off. “Nah, throat’s just a little sore. I’ll sleep it off.”

“Once you get home, take a bath and drink some warm tea.”

“Are ya actually worried for me, Omi-Omi?” Atsumu laughs. “Never thought the day would come.”

Sakusa sends him a scathing glare. “I simply don’t want you spreading your germs all over me.”

“Yeah, right, Omi-kun. I see right through ya.”

Sakusa snorts and ignores him, but Atsumu can’t help but feel a little curl of pride in his stomach. He  _ does  _ care, even if he won’t say it outright.

Atsumu probably shouldn’t be this pleased, but he’s long since given up on understanding his feelings regarding Sakusa Kiyoomi.

* * *

The brush of Sakusa’s thumb, skin-on-skin, pervades his thoughts through the rest of the night, all the way back to his apartment, just a few rooms away from Sakusa’s.

Sakusa’s thumb had been warm, calloused from countless hours of volleyball. He can’t help but reach up and feel the spot on his cheek. It’s warm. 

Atsumu starts coughing. Slowly, at first, but he can’t seem to stop, and he leans his head towards his shoulder as his coughs become rougher, becoming increasingly alarmed. It feels as if there’s something in his throat, choking him. He can’t stop coughing; he’s starting to feel panicked - what if he coughs out blood, what if he’s dying, like in the movies -

He releases an ugly rasp and feels something papery escape his mouth. A pale-blue flower petal lands on his hand.

Atsumu stares at it. What the hell.

He considers this. Logically, he knows that he shouldn’t be coughing out flower petals. 

He should search this up, like  _ why are there apparently flower petals stuck in my throat _ , but also, he’s tired. His hands hurt from practice, and his chest aches. Maybe it’s some elaborate prank by his teammates in an attempt to surprise him. Maybe it’s a freak occurrence.

Atsumu throws the petal in the trash and goes to bed.

* * *

Of course, fortune isn’t in Atsumu’s favor. The attacks come randomly; they’re infrequent at first, but slowly rise in intensity as the days go on. He’s grateful that they usually come at night, long after practice finishes and he’s walked home from dinner, though he’s not so grateful when he’s hunched over a trash can, coughing his lungs out.

He throws away all his bags of tea. He’s tired of the taste of plants.

Eventually, it comes to a point where Atsumu can’t ignore it. His online searches give him a name:  _ Hanahaki Disease. _

_ A disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals as a result of one-sided love. It ends when the beloved returns their feelings, or the victim dies. _

Love. Who could he be in love with? But even as Atsumu ponders the question, only a single person comes to mind. Sakusa Kiyoomi.

Perhaps it was inevitable. Their friendship, made up of endless bickering punctuated by a few brief, soft moments, is the closest thing Atsumu has had to a relationship in years. Sure, he has fans, and he has his teammates. (And his brother, though he’s loath to admit it.) 

But he’s never felt as truly close to someone as he has with Sakusa. No one else makes his heart skip a beat with a simple brush of a thumb. No one else makes him  _ want -  _ to touch, to feel, as much as Sakusa does.

And he does want. But Sakusa is unreachable, unattainable. He doesn’t let anyone touch him, not even a pat on the shoulder or a high-five after a good spike. If he had to fall in love with someone, Sakusa is objectively the worst person to do so.

Atsumu isn’t stupid. Hanahaki is fatal, if left untreated, and he won’t let it jeopardize the volleyball career that he’s worked so hard for. He’ll have to make some sort of decision soon. Confessing is the easiest option to try.

Whether or not Sakusa will return his feelings is a different matter entirely.

Atsumu stares down at the dozen flower petals in the trash. They’re a pretty, delicate pink, which he thinks he would appreciate more if they weren’t speckled with his blood.

He’ll make his decision later.

* * *

It starts to affect his practice. He knew that it was inevitable; the attacks come randomly, but they become more frequent the more he thinks about Sakusa.

The problem is, now Atsumu can’t stop noticing him. From the shine to his curly black hair, meticulously brushed, to the freaky tendons in his pale wrists. His wrists. Atsumu doesn’t consider wrists to be a particularly erotic part of the body, but when he sees Sakusa put a particularly vicious spin on his spike, bouncing right off the receiver’s arms, he thinks about reconsidering. 

He tries vainly to assert control over his stupid brain. It doesn’t work, but he still tries.

It comes to a halt on a sunny Friday afternoon. They’re playing a 3v3 match just for fun. Atsumu knows it’s a reward for good behavior during the week, but he can’t bring himself to feel patronized, not when he feels the thrum of excitement in his veins. Any match with Hinata and Bokuto is bound to be an exciting one.

Even Sakusa is excited; there’s a pinkness to his cheeks and a gleam in his eyes that isn’t there, most days. Atsumu wonders when he started seeing Sakusa’s tells like that.

Meian makes an incredible dig that leaves Atsumu whistling, even when they lose the point. He gets his revenge, though, when he pulls off the quick he’s been practicing with Hinata. Any higher, and Hinata might actually start flying, he’s sure of it.

The breaking point, though, is during the final set, when Bokuto spikes a stupidly powerful straight. Hinata manages to receive the ball, but it’s at a bad angle. Atsumu twists, bends so that he’s underneath the ball, and sets it to Sakusa, to the left. 

He smiles. It’s a good set, despite the awkward angle. Just the right amount of speed. Really, he should be proud of himself.

Sakusa leaps, suspended in the air for just a moment. He spikes the ball with an unnatural bend of his wrist, making it past the blockers and hitting the floor with a satisfying smack.

“Nice kill,” Atsumu says cheerfully, as Sakusa lands and turns to look at Atsumu.

He smiles.

It’s small, just the gentle upwards twitch of his lips, but there’s so much fondness in his gaze that it takes Atsumu’s breath away. Quite literally.

He hunches over, slapping his hand over his mouth, and tries to stifle his coughs. Everyone’s eyes land on him.

“Miya, are you alright?” Sakusa asks. The others echo the question, but Atsumu doesn’t have time to answer. 

“Bathroom,” he manages to gasp out, and makes a break for it.

He throws open the door just in time to hunch over and cough his lungs out into the toilet bowl. A cascade of petals tumbles from his mouth. They’re a dark red this time, red enough that he can’t discern whether his blood is staining them.

He sits on the dirty bathroom floor for a few minutes afterwards, chest heaving, and wipes the spit from his mouth. 

He's sick of this, the way he's getting used to being hunched over a toilet, gasping for air. And now it's disrupted his practice. He glares down at the pale pink hue of the water.

He startles as the echo of footsteps sound nearby, and Atsumu hurriedly flushes the toilet, walking out of the stall.

He looks up to see Sakusa watching him. His eyes are very black. Atsumu walks over to the sink and casually washes his hands.

“Meian sent me to check on you. What happened?” Sakusa finally asks.

“Nothin’. Just some bad food, probably.”

Sakusa frowns. “You should be more careful about what you eat.”

“Eh, don’t matter. I’m good now,” Atsumu says, wringing out his hands to dry them and ignoring how Sakusa glares at him.

“If you’re sure,” Sakusa says, walking ahead. “I don’t want you getting sick on the court.”

Atsumu watches the way his back shifts as he walks. “Yeah. Uh, hey, Omi-Omi.”

Sakusa turns. Stops. “What is it, Miya?”

It’s been a long time since he stopped protesting that nickname, Atsumu notices. “I wanted to say somethin’.”

“Alright.” Sakusa waits. “What is it? Spit it out.”

Atsumu takes in a breath. Can he really say it now, force the words out of his throat like the flower petals he coughs out? Now, in the privacy of this bathroom, with just the two of them. He breathes out. He's scared.

He can’t say it.

“You, uh, have something on your face,” Atsumu lies.

Sakusa scowls. “You’re lying. There are mirrors next to us. If you were trying to get a reaction out of me, that was truly a piss-poor attempt.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right, sorry. We should get back to practice now,” Atsumu says, walking past him. 

His hands shake. If Sakusa notices, he doesn’t say anything.

* * *

Atsumu goes and schedules an appointment with his doctor. It’s past overdue, really, and he’s unsurprised when she refers him to a hanahaki specialist. 

The specialist lectures him on the development of his disease, waving around pictures that he doesn’t pay much attention to. He gets to take home a bottle of pills, and is instructed to take one every night and before matches, if necessary.

She recommends surgery. On one hand, it would solve all of this without the need to talk to Sakusa. On the other, it would make sure Atsumu never feels the same way toward Sakusa again.

Atsumu thinks of Sakusa’s smile, the brush of his thumb. He tells her that he’ll consider it.

The chance that Sakusa might reciprocate his feelings is slim, but if it exists, Atsumu can try, right? At least, that’s what he tells himself as he trudges back to his apartment, quiet.

He looks up and catches the eye of a familiar face, standing in front of Sakusa’s apartment door.

The man perks up. “Oh, Miya-san! It’s been a while!”

Atsumu squints and searches his memory. “Oh, Komori-kun! I haven’t seen you since youth camp,” he says, smiling. He vaguely remembers him as Sakusa’s cheerful shadow, all round eyebrows and cheer.

“Yeah, the good old days, huh,” Komori laughs. “ May I ask what you’re doing here?”

Atsumu blinks. “I live down the hall,” he says, jerking his thumb in the direction of his apartment.

Komori flushes. “Oh! I’m sorry. Sakusa never mentioned it.”

_ Oh, he didn’t, did he? _ Atsumu thinks, but before he can come up with a retort, the door opens and Sakusa comes out, mask firmly fixed on his face.

“I’m ready. Let’s leave,” Sakusa says, then notices Atsumu. “Oh. I see you’re being reacquainted.” 

“No, no, Miya-san and I were finishing up,” Komori says. Atsumu feels a flicker of annoyance - who is he to decide? - but he steps back. 

At least, until Komori walks forward and claps a hand on Sakusa’s shoulder.

Atsumu freezes. He waits for Sakusa to flinch, to step away, because that’s what Sakusa  _ does _ ; outside of volleyball, he doesn’t let anyone stand too close, much less touch him. 

Instead, he stands there complacently, a fond look directed at Komori. He doesn’t move away.

_ No way _ , Atsumu thinks.  _ No fuckin’ way. _

Atsumu definitely won’t be the first to say that he is, as a person, flawed - Osamu would be - and as he watches Komori’s hand sit unassumingly on Sakusa’s shoulder, something ugly and twisted burrows its claws in his mind.

“Oh, I see how it is.” Atsumu says.

They stare at him. “What are you talking about, Miya?” Sakusa asks.

“I’m congratulating ya, Omi-Omi,” Atsumu says. He can’t stop the words from flowing out of his mouth. “Wouldn’t’ve expected it, but it’s perfect. Komori-kun’s always followin’ you around like some sick, lost puppy. He cleans up after your tantrums. You two deserve each other.”

Komori frowns. “Um, Miya-san—“ he says, but Sakusa stops him.

“Motoya, you can go ahead. Don’t wait for me,” Sakusa says, and Komori nods, scampering away. He walks forward until there’s only a few inches between them. 

Even with the mask, Atsumu can see the truly thunderous look on his face.  _ Uh oh, he’s pissed, _ Atsumu thinks.

“What is your  _ problem _ ?” Sakusa snarls. 

Atsumu blinks innocently. “I don’t know what ya mean, Omi-Omi. I was just sayin’ you two make a great couple.”

“You know very well what I mean,” Sakusa says in a low voice. “We’re not even—agh, nevermind. You don’t deserve any explanation. I’m done here.”

He turns away. “You know, Miya, I almost started to think you weren’t as much of an asshole as you seemed. Clearly, you’ve proven me wrong.”

Atsumu would be lying if he said that didn’t sting. He stands there, silent and wishing he never opened his mouth, as Sakusa walks away.

* * *

He finds himself hunched over his toilet again, furiously swiping yellow petals from his mouth. His brain refuses to give up on loving Sakusa Kiyoomi, even though he is an absolute  _ asshole. _

His mind supplies him with images of Sakusa’s furious gaze, the sharpness of his eyes, the low timbre of his voice—Atsumu stops himself there. But it’s not just the physical attraction; he can’t help but think of their banter, the quiet understanding they share, despite all their differences.

And he’s all the worse for it, because now he knows: Sakusa Kiyoomi already loves someone. And it isn’t Atsumu. He doesn’t need any more confirmation than that. Physical contact isn’t a gift Sakusa gives anyone - anyone, except for Komori Motoya.

_ It’s the eyebrows, ain’t it, _ he thinks. It’s also the cheerfulness, the kindness Atsumu is too much of an asshole for, the patience to deal with Sakusa’s shit that he only has in spades.

He hates himself for falling in love with someone who would never reciprocate, but he hates himself even more for not being able to be the kind of person Sakusa would love.

Atsumu finds his hand drifting to Osamu’s contact on his phone, but he jerks his hand away. He knows what ‘Samu would say. He knows it’s his fault.

Instead, he slumps down on his bed and reads the instructions for the bottle of pills the doctor gave him. They slow the frequency of the attacks, but they aren’t a permanent solution, and they come with possible side effects: mild nausea and a general dulling of emotion, especially regarding the target of his disease.

Atsumu’s fine with that. He could do with less emotions, anyways. They’re the whole root of this mess. He swallows a pill with a cup of water and pointedly ignores the tumble of thoughts in his head.

**Author's Note:**

> cut paragraph from the google doc:  
> “ His mind is swimming with cocks, so many damn cocks and penises, it’s not right, he should probably see if other people are this horny for this long askjdfajskdfajs he’s the thirstiest man to live in history, he’s been on the floor of the gym locker room more times than he can count I can’t look at myself in the face ever again”


End file.
